Revel in the Smell of Cordite

After a pleasant evening of shooting off fireworks and other explosives -- the highlight of the evening was some for-entertainment-only mortars, which came complete with a cardboard launching tube -- it's nice to crack a beer and see everyone else enjoying themselves too.

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We had beef-brats. And Blue Bell pralines-n-cream icecream as a chaser. Our fireworks were on Saturday, although Mother Nature has been providing a nightly round since Saturday night (over an inch and a half of rain. Whee!!)

Out here, with the Rez nearby for supply and pesky laws ignored, it sounded like Khe Sanh.. Thunderous detonations from all points. Along with the gunfire. Americans giving a big FU to the safety freaks!

We went to a state park, where there were lots of ethnic types*, mostly families - people of color, heavy accents, unusual dress, unfamiliar foods. Leisure and gluttony seemed to be exactly what they had on their minds, and I couldn't be happier about it.

From L.A. as well, it's clear the AP is full of it. Driving around any time after dark over the last three nights, it's been a semi-constant barrage of illicit fireworks exploding in the airspace of the metro area. This occurs mainly in the skies over the ethnic neighborhoods of lower socio-economic classes (read: Barrios). The smoke gets so thick the evening of Independence Day, by 9:30 pm, you start not being able to see the fireworks over neighborhoods further away as they get obscured (just to give you a sense of the magnitude).

With all the fire hazard out here, if you're near the hills, it truly is inadvisable to launch anything, not to mention I just don't have the space, so we headed up to the mountains to picnic, enjoy the day, and watch fireworks over Big Bear Lake. As a bonus, the local Christian radio station was broadcasting patriotic songs, readings of the Declaration, and such all day. Around here, even the country stations only play a few patriotic or 'Merica songs, which is pathetic. It was a great day to celebrate a great nation.

We had 100 or so family and friends over for a wonderful evening. Those of us with respect for our neighbors and the law set off the Safe and Sane versions of fireworks. The others set of a barrage of illegal fireworks. Then at 9:30 PM Disneyland chimed in and showed us what we really wanted. They installed pneumatic launchers years ago so there is less low lying smoke to obscure the fireworks. It was a glorious evening, and everyone went home happy.

Hey, another SoCal presence in the Hall! For the rest of you who may not be familiar with the 'safe and sane' tag, that's fireworks like cones, sparklers, snakes, piccolo petes, and the like. I grew up with these as the normal thing on the Fourth, but now They're legal in only a few cities in Southern California. In most areas around here they are now illegal. It's funny to me how, with the illegal fireworks, when I was a kid, you'd see a few bottle rockets and firecrackers now and then, but that was it. Now there are more aerial burst fireworks being fired outside organized shows than within them on the Fourth. Kind of ironic.